Undone
by Earwax
Summary: Draco and Narcissa talk about the nature of hatred.


**Author's Notes: **This is just something that's been floating around in my head for awhile. I still don't think it's quite right, but I'm sick of being a perfectionist about it. Please R&R.

Undone

**(A Harry Potter Fic)**

When Draco was very young he told his mother that he hated Harry Potter. It was just after he had got off the train for summer break at the end of his first year. He had hugged and kissed his mother and she had asked him how school had been. Instead of responding with a simple, "fine," Draco wasted no time going into a tirade listing all the things he hated about Hogwarts. On the top of his long list was Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley, and, of course, Harry Potter.

Narcissa had laughed and told Draco that he didn't know what real hatred was. Draco angrily said he did, but that only caused Narcissa to laugh harder.

When they had gotten back to the Malfoy mansion, Draco went to his room and did not leave until his father came home from the Ministry, roughly around dinnertime. They had eaten and, when his mother was safely out of earshot, Draco had told him about his earlier talk with Narcissa. Draco had asked why she laughed. Lucius had looked at his son and coldly told him that his mother was only a Black. She could never understand hatred to the degree a Malfoy could.

Perhaps had things gone differently, Draco would have forgotten what both his mother and father had said to him regarding hatred. But things hadn't gone differently and every year Draco would get off the train to met his mother and they would have the same conversation. Narcissa no longer laughed when he spoke of his burning hatred for Potter, but she still denied that he knew the meaning of the word.

At the end of his fifth year, Lucius had gone to Azkaban. Draco had blamed Potter for this and attempted to hex him on the train ride home. Nineteen other hexes had hit Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle in Harry's defense. Their eyes became bloodshot, their skin had become slimy, and tentacles had begun to sprout on their faces. They looked and felt like giant worms. Needless to say, Draco had refused to leave the train. He sent Crabbe and Goyle out to fetch his mother. The fact that they had also been hexed with the same hexes that Draco had did not bother him. Narcissa had been appalled at their appearance and wasted no time un-hexing her son and his friends; to the great relief of Mrs. Goyle and Mrs. Crabbe, not to mention the boys themselves.

Draco managed to keep himself composed until the Crabbes and Goyles left the train. After they had gone he broke down and wept; whether from embarrassment, pain, or grief Draco didn't know. However, what he did know was that Narcissa cried with him. His mother had taken him in her arms and hugged him and he couldn't have loved her more for it. Only she had ever cared enough to do such a thing.

Later, Draco had been disgusted with himself for that moment of weakness. As a Malfoy, his father had never allowed him to cry. A Malfoy had to be strong and Draco had proven time and time again that he was anything but.

When they had gotten home, Draco's self-loathing had disappeared so that only his loathing for Potter remained. _Potter. _It was his fault that his father was rotting in Azkaban. It was his fault that his mother looked so sick and pale. It was his fault that Draco had been cruelly hexed by his fellow students. Draco blamed him, perhaps unfairly, for all that and more. Draco's anger grew and he released it in the one person that was available that wasn't a house elf.

"Were those hexes real enough for you, mother?" Draco asked bitterly. "Now you know why I hate him so much."

Narcissa laughed just then. Her laugh was hollow, aching, nothing like the bell like sound she usually made. "You hate shadows," she said. "You don't hate what's real."

She was beginning to frighten him. The strain of Lucius being in Azkaban must have been taking its toll. "Mother, forget I said anything." He offered her his hand. "I'll take you upstairs. You need to rest."

The laughter abruptly stopped and her warm eyes became cold. "Nonsense." She waved his hand away. "I'm wide awake."

"Mother..."

"You hate shadows," she repeated. "I alone hate what is real."

In her eyes, Draco saw a mad intelligence that had not been there before. Lucius often had that look, but never his mother. She looked cold, calculating, nothing like the Narcissa he knew. "What do you mean, mother?"

"You hate Harry Potter without knowing him. You hate the Mudbloods for their inferiority, and you hate Dumbledore because the Dark Lord fears him. You hate the Dark Lord's enemies, but you are not sure who they are. You hate them because you are loyal to him."

"Yes, mother," said Draco, somewhat surprised, "aren't you?"

Much to Draco's chagrin, she didn't answer.

"You hate dreams, illusions, things that mean nothing!"

Her words stung him. They penetrated deep into his skin and caused him pain. But, as so often the case, Draco's pain soon dissipated into anger. "What do you hate, mother?" he spat. "Will you finally tell me what _real_ hatred is?"

Again, she laughed. "Why, I hate Voldemort, of course."

Narcissa said this so casually, so coolly that Draco couldn't help but again question her sanity. "Mother, you don't mean that. You can't mean that."

She smiled, and that one mad grin caused a small part of Draco to fear her. "Oh, but I do!" his mother exclaimed. "I hate him more than you could ever hate some boy with a scar on his head."

Draco didn't want to believe her. His mother couldn't feel that way. She couldn't be a traitor to the cause. Narcissa was a Death Eater, a loyal Death Eater same as his father. She loved the Dark Lord. She had to, otherwise everything he had been taught, everything he had learned would mean nothing. For it would all be based on a lie. "Mother, you don't mean that."

"I've hated him for years," she said softly. "He took my sister from me. I've never told you about Bella, did I? You know her history with the Dark Lord. You know what's she done for him. You admire her for it, but you never knew her, Draco. You never knew how fiercely she loved or how she delighted in telling stories by candlelight. She liked to dance. She could spend hours doing just that. Why, at her fourteenth birthday she danced straight through from midnight to dawn. We tried to get her to go to bed, but she claimed that she was having too much fun to ever stop."

"Mother..."

"That was before Voldemort owned her," continued Narcissa. "Before the Dark Lord made her his little whore and she lost over a decade of her life to the Dementors. That didn't stop Lucius, oh no. He still serves the filthy Mudblood and now he's in Azkaban. You and he are a lot alike Draco, did you ever notice the resemblance? It's more than just looks. He spent years making you like him. He spent nearly a decade and half sucking out everything good in you, priming you for the Dark Lord. He'd give his only son to a Mudblood. Don't you find that ironic?"

"Please, mother," Draco pleaded, "you don't know what you're saying."

"I know what I'm saying!" Narcissa shouted. Seeing the frightened look in Draco's eyes, she lowered her voice. "I know exactly what I am saying," she repeated quietly. "Up until a few days ago, I had a cousin, just one. Sirius, he was the last Black, the only one left to carry on my name. I betrayed him to Lucius who betrayed him to Bellatrix. My sister killed him without thought, without mercy. She loved him once just as I loved him once. He made us laugh during Christmas time." She frowned. "That was until Auntie disowned him. We didn't really talk much after that."

"Mother, why are you telling me this? This is treason! You could be killed!"

"Draco, there is no one here to kill me but you."

"Mother, don't say that. You know I would never touch you."

Narcissa cocked her head to the side. "Really? That's more than your father can say."

"Mother, please stop talking."

_Take it back, _Draco begged silently. _Take it all back, mother. Take it all back and we'll forget your words were ever spoken._

"I hate Bella because she killed Sirius, but since I allowed him to be murdered am I any better than her? We murdered our own blood for one who is tainted. I hate Lucius because he holds his Lord above all else, including us. I hate Voldemort because he destroyed what was mine. He destroyed my family. He took away Bellatrix. He took away Lucius and now he seeks to take you away as well. One by one my family is being eradicated. And you wonder why I laughed when you first said you hated Potter at the tender age of eleven. What has that boy ever taken from you? What has anyone ever taken from you? Pride? That can be recovered, but family, Draco, family! Once that's been lost it can never be found again."

"How long?" croaked Draco. "How long have you felt like this?"

Again, Narcissa smiled. "The day I received the Dark Mark. I felt its burn and it matched the hatred I felt in my soul."

If that was true, their entire relationship was based on deceit. Deceit from the one person he thought had loved him enough to never lie to him. Everything she had ever told him was based on a lie. You can't be saved on a lie. Or was it the other way around? "I, I won't tell father about this, mother."

"Would you kill your own mother?" She put her hand on his cheek, and Draco fought not to flinch. "No, my little dragon, I know you won't. But get out, my son, get out before it's too late. Hell burns, Draco. It burns so very, very much."

With that, she left the room.

When he heard the door close behind her, Draco collapsed on the cold, marble floor and, for the second time that day, he cried.


End file.
